Locomotion, in ethology, any of a variety of movements among animals that results in progression from one place to another.

Principles

To locomote, all animals require both propulsive and control mechanisms. The diverse propulsive mechanisms of animals involve a contractile structure—muscle in most cases—to generate a propulsive force. The quantity, quality, and position of contractions are initiated and coordinated by the nervous system: through this coordination, rhythmic movements of the appendages or body produce locomotion.

Animals successfully occupy a majority of the vast number of different physical environments (ecological niches) on Earth; in a discussion of locomotion, however, these environments can be divided into four types: aerial (including arboreal), aquatic, fossorial (underground), and terrestrial. The physical restraints to movement—gravity and drag—are the same in each environment: they differ only in degree. Gravity is here considered as the weight and inertia (resistance to motion) of a body, drag as any force reducing movement. Although these are not the definitions of a physicist, they are adequate for a general understanding of the forces that impede animal locomotion.

To counteract the force of gravity, which is particularly important in aerial, fossorial, and terrestrial locomotion, all animals that live in these three environments have evolved skeletal systems to support their body and to prevent the body from collapsing upon itself. The skeletal system may be internal or external, and it may act either as a rigid framework or as a flexible hydraulic (fluid) support.

To initiate movement, a sufficient amount of muscular work must be performed by aerial, fossorial, and terrestrial animals to overcome inertia. Aquatic animals must also overcome inertia; the buoyancy of water, however, reduces the influence of gravity on movement. Actually, because many aquatic animals are weightless—i.e., they possess neutral buoyancy by displacing a volume of water that is equal in weight to their dry weight—little muscular work is needed to overcome inertia. But not all aquatic animals are weightless. Those with negative buoyancy sink as a result of their weight; hence, the greater their weight, the more muscular energy they must expend to remain at a given level. Conversely, an animal with positive buoyancy floats to and rests on the surface and must expend muscular energy to remain submerged.

In water, the primary force that retards or resists forward movement is drag, the amount of which depends upon the animal’s shape and how that shape cleaves the water. Drag results mainly from the friction of the water as it flows over the surface of the animal and the adherence of the water to the animal’s surface (i.e., the viscosity of the water). Because of the water’s viscosity, its flow tends to be lamellar; i.e., different layers of the water flow at different speeds, with the slowest layer of flow being the one adjacent to the body surface. As the flow speed increases, the lamellar pattern is lost, and turbulence develops, thereby increasing the drag.

Another component of drag is the retardation of forward movement by the backward pull of the eddies of water behind the tail of the animal. As they flow off an animal, the layers of water from each side meet and blend. If the animal is streamlined (e.g., has a fusiform shape), the turbulence is low; if, however, the water layers from the sides meet abruptly and with different speeds, the turbulence is high, causing a strong backward pull, or drag, on the animal.

Aerial locomotion also encounters resistance from drag, but, because the viscosity and density of air are much less than those of water, drag is also less. The lamellar flow of air across the wing surfaces is, however, extremely important. The upward force of flight, or lift, results from air flowing faster across the upper surface than across the lower surface of the wing. Because this differential in flow produces a lower air pressure on the upper surface, the animal rises. Lift is also produced by the flow of water across surfaces, but aquatic animals use the lift as a steering aid rather than as a source of propulsion.

Drag is generally considered a negligible influence in terrestrial locomotion; and, in fossorial locomotion, the friction and compactness (friability) of soils are the two major restraints. If the soil is extremely friable, as is sand, some animals can “swim” through it. Such fossorial locomotion, however, is quite rare; most fossorial animals must laboriously tunnel through the soil and thereafter depend upon the tunnels for active locomotion.

Movement in animals is achieved by two types of locomotion, axial and appendicular. In axial locomotion, which includes the hydraulic ramjet method of ejecting water (e.g., squid), production of a body wave (eel), or the contract–anchor–extend method (leech), the body shape is modified, and the interaction of the entire body with the surrounding environment provides the propulsive force. In appendicular locomotion, special body appendages interact with the environment to produce the propulsive force.

There are also many animal species that depend on their environment for transportation, a type of mobility called passive locomotion. Some jellyfish, for example, have structures called floats that extend above the water’s surface and act as sails. A few spiders have developed an elaborate means of kiting; when a strand of their web silk reaches a certain length after being extended into the air, the wind resistance of the strand is sufficient to carry it away with the attached spider. In one fish, the remora, the dorsal fin has moved to the top of the head and become modified into a sucker; by attaching itself to a larger fish, the remora is able to ride to its next meal.

Aquatic locomotion

Microorganisms

Most motile protozoans, which are strictly aquatic animals, move by locomotion involving one of three types of appendages: flagella, cilia, or pseudopodia. Cilia and flagella are indistinguishable in that both are flexible filamentous structures containing two central fibrils (very small fibres) surrounded by a ring of nine double fibrils. The peripheral fibrils seem to be the contractile units and the central ones, neuromotor (nervelike) units. Generally, cilia are short and flagella long, although the size ranges of each overlap.